Kings Cross Square on the front of Lighting Journal

Great to see our Kings Cross Square public realm scheme on the front of Lighting Journal Magazine and the full feature within.

Article text -

Tim
Downey outlines StudioFractal’s lighting design for King’s Cross Square, the
first all-LED scheme for a major public space in the UK

The busiest transport interchange in
London, serving around 140000 people a day. Kings Cross Square is a gateway to the
massive regeneration of the Kings Cross area. The aim of the squares redevelopment
was to restore its original integrity and give it a greater civic importance,
comparable to that of other public realms in the city such as Trafalgar Square,
Leicester Square and Tower Hill Square.

There have been major structural changes to
the space. Architect Stanton Williams replanned the station entries and exits
to ease movement, and incorporated three large London Underground services structures
within the square. Clad in the same granite as the plaza, these merge with the
surrounding urban landscape and incorporate a variety of service functions and
retail activities, enlivening and animating the square.

Lighting was designed from the outset to
create a strong visual identity, support wayfinding and encourage commuters to
linger and appreciate the space. The area had to be highly flexible, which entailed
achieving the right balance between functional and aesthetic lighting. It had to
be easy to use when people were in a hurry — most are on their way to a mainline
or underground station — but also a great place to pause and enjoy the
surroundings.

The strategy concentrated on incorporating
lighting into the built environment wherever possible, highlighting the
historic facade to create a three-dimensional space and emphasising materials
and textures. The warm brick façade and the grey-toned granite were lit in
different colour temperatures to produce the most natural effect. We tried very
hard to use every possible structure to integrate lighting, so that each
building element had its own identity but still contributed to the overall
space.

The scheme involves many layers of lighting
from a number of directions. This is deliberate and ensures the vertical and
horizontal lighting is as even as possible — and yet the appearance is that it
varies greatly. This is a good trick — in the darker areas there is more light
than you would think, but in the brighter areas it is not as high as you would
imagine. There is much written on horizontal illumination levels, but the key
here is vertical illumination and how bright the space feels.

Despite the level of integration, there
were large areas where we had to add light. The majority of the plaza
illumination is delivered from three 20m bespoke stainless steel columns, each
housing an array of individually focused LED spotlights. Strategically
positioned to align with the historic station frontage, the LED arrays have
been carefully designed to provide a low glare crisply functional appearance
against the warmly glowing façade. Great effort went into placing and scaling
them correctly, and then conducting an exhaustive and detailed design process
to ensure they had the right feeling of permanence, solidity and elegance.

Glare was a concern for our clients where
the columns were concerned. Views of the newly revealed façade were sacrosanct
— and local residents, businesses and hotels also had to be considered. We
designed the columns to have dual sources — one to provide focused, controlled downward
illumination and one to provide a backlighting element to reduce contrast and
also even cut the appearance. All lighting elements were specially made for the
project and we viewed a number of mock-ups from iGuzzini before we were happy.
Each spotlight on each column has been specifically aimed so that we created a
very soft field of illumination across the square - without the glare often associated
with these types of exterior lighting installations.

Smaller columns are positioned to guide
commuters to the ticket concourse, and a variety of low-profile lighting
elements have been designed into the various structures and forms — such as the
benches and trees — to provide supplementary illumination and localised accent.

We had a number of clients on this project
- Network Rail, London Underground, Camden City Council, Islington City
Council. Transport for London and English Heritage — each of which had a
different set of lighting standards. All of these vary in terms of luminance,
illuminance, permissible colour appearance and colour rendering, adding to the
complexity.

In addition, we proposed from the outset to
design an all-LED scheme — we knew from the beginning this was the right route
for the client in terms of energy, cost and maintenance cycles — which meant
that most of these required proof that LEDs would provide the quality, quantity
and longevity of lighting. We made sure that all products were robust, could be
maintained easily and came complete with five to seven-year warranties.

As well as collaborating with the architect
from an early stage — essential for the seamlessness of the scheme – we worked
very closely with manufacturers to select luminaire types that could provide
the right lumen outputs and be a small enough to successfully integrate into
the architecture – elements such as the granite slots in the ventilation shafts
are particularly small and we had a set opening (due to airflow and aesthetics)
to work with. This lighting was needed to contribute to the ambient lighting
levels while providing visual interest across the square.

The project led a number of manufacturers
to create new LED luminaires and we pushed them to speed up their LED
development. Aside from iGuzzini creating bespoke LED modules for the lighting
columns, Selux introduced the LED M125 for the London Underground entrances and
Kemps Architectural Lighting produced newly developed linear LED fittings.

The attention to detail is impressive
across the square, the result of the close cooperation with the architect
throughout the design phases and across the phased construction programme. The
project has transformed Kings Cross Square from a neglected site into an
exemplary public urban space – already well used by day and night.